


The Year of King JJ

by WithBroomBefore



Series: Exhibitions [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Music, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 18:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithBroomBefore/pseuds/WithBroomBefore
Summary: Yuri acknowledged, at some point, that JJ wasn’t objectively the worst person who had ever existed.





	

Yuri acknowledged, at some point, that JJ wasn’t objectively the worst person who had ever existed. It had something to do with not being fifteen any longer and something to do with the way Otabek looked at him patiently when he said horrible things about other skaters. JJ liked Otabek, so he had at least some modicum of taste even if it wasn’t in music (though that had improved as well over the years). It also might have had something to do with taking gold over him when Yuri was eighteen (seventeen had been spent working out what to do with himself after the growth spurt of the previous year, which he preferred not to think about).

He hadn’t been sure what to expect. He had never beaten JJ, not when it counted. That first GPF didn’t, at all: They both had to be at their best. But JJ looked up at him (not by a lot; he hadn’t grown enough that the top step gave him much of an advantage) from the silver podium and said, “About time.” Yuri blinked. Something in JJ’s expression sent him back four years to being _completely furious_ that Katsuki couldn’t seem to pull himself together enough to be interesting to skate against. “I’ll crush you at the final, obviously,” JJ added, but his grin was possibly not completely obnoxious. He didn’t, but Yuri’s silver was only a fraction above his bronze (and not much more than that below Katsuki’s gold, but it was his last season and that wasn’t, Yuri supposed, the worst possible outcome).

He knew that Victor had been bored out of his mind for years. He had been wary of the same fate at one point, but that concern had dissolved early. It was one of the ways in which he wasn’t Victor, and whether it was due to his own skill level or that of his rivals, he was glad of it. He was never going to be bored on the ice, not with JJ trading places with him on the podium nearly every other competition, not with Otabek coming on like a freight train and Phichit too close for any of them to relax.

(Yuri was twenty the first time Otabek beat both of them. The footage after would show him and JJ both smiling helplessly, Otabek looking vaguely astonished in the middle. In one of the other ways in which he was not Victor, Yuri did not reach up from the bronze podium, grab him by the sequined collar, and kiss him, which would have made him self-conscious. Instead, Yuri pushed him against a wall backstage and did a thorough job of it. It was one of his more fond memories: Their medals clinked together, and Otabek was smiling properly when they pulled apart.)

* * *

JJ retired when he was twenty-five. It made sense, in a real-world sort of way that Yuri had trouble accepting. Isabella had finished her first master’s degree (“First?” Otabek asked, and JJ had nodded with bemused pride) and decided that it was an acceptable time to think about children. Despite his unshakable conviction that Princess Katsuki was and would ever be the most beautiful, intelligent, and talented creature ever to grace the planet, Yuri was willing to accept that the future Yang children (two years into marriage, Isabella showed no intention of changing her name) might have merits of their own.

“He’s not selfish, really,” Otabek pointed out once. They were sitting in the hotel cafe. “I mean, he is a bit, but have you seen him with Isabella? He’s just always been the best, at least in his region. Self-confidence isn’t a bad thing. I think he’d be perfectly willing to be friends with anyone who wanted to talk to him.”

“Too bad nobody does, then,” Yuri snarled. He was sixteen and snarling at everything because he _kept losing_ and what if this was it, what if the growth spurt had ruined everything and he was finished -

“Hey.” Otabek jogged his arm. “You’ll get him next year.”

“He touched my _hair_ ,” Yuri said.

Otabek’s eyebrows were unimpressed. “So have I. It feels like Velcro.”

“That’s different.”

“So have Victor, Katsuki, and Chulanont. And Mila, I assume. And -”

“That’s _diff_ \- augh. Whatever.” Yuri pushed his tea away and buried his face in his arms. “It doesn’t matter. I can still hate him.”

“That is your right, yes.” There was a brief considering silence, followed by a hand resting lightly between his shoulder blades. “Everyone you know has told you that you’ll grow out of this,” Otabek said. “I’ll do that if you want, because it’s true, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. What do you want me to do?”

The hand was warm on his tense muscles, and the matter-of-fact tone was comforting. Yuri turned his head on his arms so that he could look generally in Otabek’s direction. “This is good,” he said eventually. “I know I’m being ridiculous, but I like that you don’t try to talk me out of it.” In the corner of his vision, Otabek nodded. He began to rub Yuri’s shoulders, almost idly. “I know I’ll grow out of it,” Yuri said, closing his eyes. “But I have to wait, and I hate not knowing what to expect.”

“You can’t always,” Otabek pointed out. “It’s just how the world is.”

“Yes, but I can usually count on this.” Yuri pulled one hand from under his head and gestured vaguely at himself. “My body, my skating. I can handle the rest if I know how I’m going to do.”

“That makes sense.” Otabek sounded pleased, as though it really did. “You know there are other things you can count on, right?”

Yuri sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Yakov and Lilia, and Victor and Katsuki being stupid about each other, and you being my favorite.” He felt himself smile, just a little. “And hating JJ.”

When he opened his eyes, Otabek was smiling as well. “And hating JJ,” he agreed.

* * *

Otabek was wrong - it took him two years - but Yuri spent the first one being pathetically grateful that everyone had indeed been correct and he still had a skating career, so he didn’t mind all that much. When he did manage it, though - it wasn’t the final or Worlds or even Euros, but it was his first gold since the growth spurt. It meant something, too: JJ’s performance had been perfectly respectable, as had several of the others’. The high of it carried him through the banquet.

JJ took a selfie the next morning, himself and Phichit with Yuri squeezed between them to recreate the podium lineup. “I’m telling Otabek you voluntarily spent time with me,” he informed Yuri. “He’ll be so proud.”

“Tell him it was a setup and I didn’t know you’d be here,” Yuri told him, which was sort of true; Phichit had cheerfully demanded his attendance at breakfast without specifying the company, which had turned out to be most of the skaters. Yuri didn’t usually go to these things without Otabek or Katsuki or Victor there to prod him into it. But he had been hungry, and it had actually not been horrible.

It was not horrible again two years later, when they had dinner with Isabella and JJ after Worlds. Their cohort, or whatever it was, had earned a reputation for being unusually friendly for competitors. Yuri blamed Phichit, who dragged them all out together whenever he could, and Minami, who filled in when Phichit wasn’t there. Katsuki maintained that it had started with the Disney thing and was thus Yuri’s doing, which was ridiculous. Otabek said that it had to do with the fact that none of them was a runaway champion like Victor had been. Weirdly, it was easier to be comfortable around people who had beaten you as often as the other way around.

So he didn’t really object to the dinner invitation. JJ had taken gold, but only just; there had barely been a full point between the three of them all season, and the GPF had gone to Yuri.

“Leo _never gets to choose again_ ,” Yuri informed them. “This was an appalling abuse of our good nature.”

“What good nature would that be?” Otabek murmured.

Yuri glared at him. “Hey, I did it. I’m just saying, there’s now footage of that exhibition, and I’m not forgiving him for that any time soon.”

“You didn’t mind Phichit’s Disney,” JJ pointed out. “I thought it was kind of fun.”

“The Disney,” Otabek said dryly, looking at Yuri, “was not Phichit’s idea.”

“You don’t know that,” Yuri said firmly.

“True. I just know that the season I tell you that my little sister has nagged me into doing _Hercules_ is the same season that every skater in our bracket had the completely unrelated urge to -”

“Oh my god,” JJ said, light dawning. “It was you. It seemed like Phichit’s sort of thing, and Leo was the one who told me, so I always assumed it was them.”

“It kind of was,” Yuri admitted. “I wanted Victor to help with my choreo, and then Katsuki got it into his head to do one, and it just sort of -” he gestured helplessly - “exploded from there.”

Otabek was looking at him with a deeply satisfied expression. “I rather thought you’d never own up,” he said.

“That’s hilarious,” Isabella said, “and rather sweet.” Yuri made a face.

“Anyway, no more pop,” he said, returning to the material point. “We’ll have to think of something better for next year.”

Across the table, Isabella and JJ exchanged a complicated look. JJ cleared his throat. “Actually, about that,” he said. “I wanted to tell you two first. I’m retiring after next season. And there’s a song I’d always wanted to do for my last exhibition program, so I’m out this time.” He rubbed one hand up the back of his head, meeting Yuri’s blank look with an unusually self-conscious smile. “Going to miss me, Plisetsky?”

“Never,” Yuri scoffed on reflex, and the smile firmed. “Thanks for the heads up, though; I’ll be sure to destroy you properly if it’s my last chance.” Judging by the way Otabek’s arm tightened around his shoulders, it didn’t come out as carelessly as he would have liked.

Otabek said, “What are you going to do?”

“He’s going to take care of our many future children while I get my PhD, is what,” Isabella said. She was smiling, so it might have been a joke. JJ beamed back at her, though, so perhaps not.

* * *

It wasn’t that he was upset about JJ, not really. It wasn’t at all an unreasonable age to retire, and people rotated in and out of the sport rapidly enough that he should be used to it. Yuri forgot sometimes, though, that he was that much younger than some of the others. Phichit was a year older than JJ, Otabek only one younger. Even Minami was older than Yuri.

“It makes sense,” Otabek said, when he tried to articulate this. “You’ve known what to expect from the competition since you started Seniors, and now it’s changing.”

Yuri scowled. “I don’t like change.” A little plaintively, he added, “And I don’t like the idea of competing without _you_.”

“I resent that, being all of twenty-three,” Otabek said mildly. “We’ve got plenty of time still.” He was quiet for a moment. “I believe the real issue at hand is what ridiculous theme you’re going to make us all do for exhibitions this season. Someone else will choose if you don’t, and then you’ll complain about it.”

He wasn’t wrong. “I’ll think about it,” Yuri said.

It came to him in a flash of utter brilliance ten minutes after they had turned out the light. He sat up abruptly, feeling only the barest twinge of guilt when Sasha bolted because he was a _genius_ , this was the best plan ever. “Beka,” he said, prodding him. “Beka! I have an idea!”

Otabek rolled over and said into his pillow, “Oh, no.”

“Very funny,” Yuri said. “It’s the best idea. Do you remember ‘the Theme of King JJ’?”

There was a brief pause. “Oh, _no_.”

“Oh, yes.” He lay back, grinning gleefully into the darkness. “We can’t be too obvious about it, though. I’m thinking classy instrumental adaptations.”

He felt Otabek cover his face with his hands, but he was laughing. “You are a ridiculous person,” Otebek said eventually, “and I love you.” He settled one arm firmly across Yuri’s chest. “Now go to sleep. We can work on choreography in the morning.”

* * *

He ultimately went full Russian Punk, which seemed an appropriate throwback. “You do know that nobody ever actually called you that, right?” Otabek said.

“Victor does sometimes,” Yuri replied, wistful, “though I suspect he's mocking me.”

Yuri woke the morning after JJ’s first qualifier to a text that said merely, _OH MY GOD, PLISETSKY, WHAT DID YOU DO,_ which he considered a solid start.

There was also one from Isabella: _You’re my favorite. Thank you._

The third, from Phichit, read, _He’s SO MAD, this is amazing._

He cackled. Otabek roused enough to say sleepily, “Does he hate you?”

“Oh, probably,” Yuri said happily. He texted back: _I don’t know what you’re talking about_ , _You’re welcome_ , and _Yes good_ , respectively.

Otabek did go for the classical adaptation; there were cellos and a soloist singing in Italian. Phichit’s adaptation was heavily Broadway influenced, Leo’s nauseatingly cheerful. Guang-Hong had turned it into a sort of folk ballad, just a tenor and a guitar, and Seung Gil had come up with a lyrical piano composition not unlike Katsuki’s piece from that year. And that was it, that was everyone still in competition who had skated against ‘the Theme of King JJ.'

* * *

When Yuri skated the routine after the GPF, Phichit posted pictures of JJ in the audience with his face buried in his hands. The effect was somewhat ruined by Isabella grinning madly on one side and Otabek patting his shoulder soothingly from the other.

“I hoped people had forgotten about it,” he said later, mournfully. “I was nineteen and very stupid.”

“This is so true!” Yuri affirmed.

Isabella smiled into her beer. “You were a bit, baby.”

“But I thought you were the _king_ , JJ.” Minami had, Yuri noted approvingly, a mocking streak that went beautifully with his earnest expression.

 _"No one defeats me,”_ Otabek sang under his breath, which was all it took to trigger a fairly decent group rendition. JJ rested his forehead against the bar and groaned into it.

“I actually always thought it would make a good drag show song,” Phichit observed, when they had finished to a scattering of applause.

“I regret everything,” JJ informed his glass, then drained it and called for another. He looked around the group. “Mostly I regret ever meeting _you_ , Yuri Plisetsky.”

“As you should,” Yuri agreed serenely.

Phichit said, “Oh! I almost forgot. Can we do Broadway next year? I wanted to claim the theme before Yuri had another terrible idea.”

Minami’s face lit up. “Oh, can we, please? I have so many ideas.”

He also seemed to be asking Yuri. “This was a brilliant idea,” he objected, on principle. “But yeah, sure.”

Phichit and Minami went off on a delighted tangent that seemed to be mostly song titles interspersed with exclamations. JJ was watching them with a complicated expression. After a moment, he caught Yuri’s eye. “That has potential to be extremely ridiculous,” he said, and lifted his glass. “I wish you the best of luck.”

* * *

Yuri came off his exhibition program at Worlds with the growl of the vocals still ringing in his ears. He was legitimately pleased with how it had turned out: technically, the lyrics were there, but you had to know that to pick them up, which was as it should be. The inarticulate roar of the chorus thrilled him every time. He stepped off the ice with, as always, the bittersweet awareness that he wouldn’t get to skate it again, not like this. This year, there was the further knowledge that it was the end of an era.

To bring the point home, JJ was waiting for him with Otabek. As soon as the skate guards were on, he stepped in and hugged Yuri hard. “You’re very weird,” JJ said into his hair, “and I’m going to miss beating you.” He let go.

Yuri looked up at him. “Yeah, I guess,” he acknowledged, and swallowed. “Let us know when you bring the Yanglets to Europe. They’ll need to meet real skaters.”

“I’ll do that,” JJ said, and was gone, leaving only Otabek.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Yuri said, but he wrapped an arm around Otabek’s waist and leaned into him as they headed backstage. “I’ve always hated him, you know that.”

“Mm.” Otabek squeezed his shoulders. “What do you want to do next year? I’m kind of thinking _Sweeney Todd_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Amon Amarth is pretty much the sound quality I had in mind for Yuri's adaptation.


End file.
